


Black Illusion

by Art_Over_Matter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Destiel - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Art_Over_Matter/pseuds/Art_Over_Matter
Summary: Dean is a demon like no other. More brutal, more fearless than any. He works alongside Crowley to rule hell. But somewhere buried in the back of his mind, he remembers what it is to be human. When he suddenly encounters an angel named Castiel, he realizes he may be able to change his fate, but it doesn't come without sacrifice...A/N: I'm not going to pretend this is my best writing, but I'm fond of this fic all the same. Enjoy.





	1. Demon, Demon, Angel

A black motorcycle pulls up to the parking lot of an old bar and its rider kicks down the kickstand. It's dark outside—it's been many hours since the sun set—and drizzling rain patters down on the tin awning that stretches out in front of the bar.  
The motorcycle rider turns the engine of his bike off and dismounts, pulling his helmet off. He wears black jeans and a black leather jacket. His jacket is only halfway zipped, showing what he wears around his neck: a chain with a small, hooked blade as a pendant. Though most of his skin is covered, two buttons of the three at the top of his shirt are undone and a hint of black ink from several tattoos is visible at his collarbone. Another black pattern curls up his neck and behind his left ear.  
Leaving his helmet on his bike, the man strolls up to the bar and leans against the side of the building near the door, pulling a lighter and a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He pulls one out of the box and flicks the lighter on. For a moment, it illuminates his face: trimmed but slightly messy facial hair, high cheekbones, irises that appear black, dark eyelashes, and a handful of freckles across his nose.  
"Dean."  
The lighter flicks off and the man cocks an eyebrow, glancing to his left as he's approached by someone else. He takes a pull off his cigarette before removing it from his lips. "Crowley."  
The newcomer, a man in his early fifties with dark hair and a salt-and-pepper beard, tucks his hands into the pockets of his long black dress coat. He coughs as Dean's cigarette smoke drifts into his face, and he waves it away. "That's disgusting, do you have to?"  
A hint of amusement shows on Dean's face before he lifts the cigarette back to his mouth.  
"So?" Crowley demands.  
"He's dead," Dean answers. He smirks. "And his girlfriend is no longer a virgin." He pauses. "Not in that order."  
Crowley rolls his eyes. "Isn't the killing fun enough for you? Why do you have to waste time with those little excursions? I got here an hour ago—when we were supposed to meet."  
Dean shrugs. "I did what you asked. I always do."  
Crowley cracks a smile and puts a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Almost always. Let's get a drink, shall we? Put that awful thing out."  
Dean flares his nostrils and exhales smoke through his nose, then puts the cigarette out in his palm, which heals instantly from the burn.  
They're an unlikely pair, one made of leather and silver and smoke and the other of black and paisley and class. But anyone in that bar could take a look at them and know not to mess with one without planning on dealing with the other.

**Crowley**  
_Demon. Previously Fergus MacLeod. Current King of Hell. Short-tempered, control-seeking, cowardly. Flirtatious manner, loves Glencraig whiskey._

**Dean**  
_Demon. Previously Dean Winchester. Crowley's right-hand man. Impassive, headstrong, fearless. Flirtatious manner, loves drinking anything containing alcohol._

"I assume you already have my next target figured out," Dean says after they've ordered their drinks.  
"Of course," Crowley answers. He smirks. "It's lovely to have a personal assassin, you know."  
Dean smiles dryly. "Gimme a little more credit than that, Crowley. I have influence on what goes on in hell. Not many demons can say that."  
"I suppose." Crowley pulls out his phone and brings up a picture of a dark-haired woman. "Meet Amelia Richardson. We have a client whose boyfriend ditched her for Amelia, and she sold her soul for revenge. Kill Amelia, we fulfill our end of the deal."  
"Sounds good," Dean says, taking a drink of his beer. "Where is she?"  
"Kermit, Texas." When Dean gives him a look, he adds, "I know it's a bit far, but you've commuted farther. Besides, it wouldn't be as much of an issue if you had transportation better than that bike of yours."  
Dean raises his eyebrows. "That bike is a vintage-style Triumph Scrambler. It was more expensive than anything you own. Watch what you say."  
Crowley narrows his eyes. "You didn't actually pay for it."  
"True. But whoever did must have had nine grand to spare."  
"Fine. You have your motorcycle, I have my suits."  
Dean snorts. "You would have nine grand in suits. All of which look the same, I might add."  
"I have a look," Crowley says defensively.  
Still looking amused, Dean takes another swig of his beer.

A man stands outside the bar in the rain, observing the actions of the two demons from through the window. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead and water starts to soak into the open trench coat that covers his shoulders. He has a slight frown that forms a single wrinkle between his eyebrows.  
He's here to kill the king of hell, and his sidekick as a bonus. They've done some things that the angels will not forgive—disrupted the natural order enough to warrant attention from heaven. But this is not the scene he imagined. The two men in the bar appear to be having a normal conversation, complete with annoyed glances, laughs, and even a nudge on the arm from one to the other.  
Nonetheless, they are demons and he's here to eliminate them.

**Castiel**  
_Angel. Member of heaven's garrison. Has a history of independent thought. Perceptive, curious, bold. Quiet manner, loves seeing the sky from Earth._

Castiel enters the bar, casting a subtle glance around to check the other visitors here. One woman sitting by herself, a pair of men who look very intoxicated and are in the process of kissing very passionately. That was it.  
He goes to sit a few stools from the two demons and asks for a beer, since that's the only alcoholic drink he knows the name of. He has no money and no intention to drink, but after he's done, that will be the last thing on anyone's mind.  
He's only been there a few minutes when he hears the older of the two—Crowley, the king of hell—say, "I never should have given any of those idiots my phone number. Pardonne moi," he says sarcastically as he slides off the barstool and answers his phone.  
Cas considers his options. He can knife the king as he's distracted on his phone, but he may draw the attention of the one in leather, who seems like the one he really needs to take by surprise. He stands, pretending to head to the restroom so that he can pass the demon, and summons his blade out of his sleeve.  
Just a quick stab up under the ribs and the demon would be dead.  
Cas is almost upon him and he starts to turn, blade ready—and then he stops. The tip of the knife is just inches from the demon's back.  
The demon spins around, catching Cas's knife arm and twisting it so hard any human's bone would crack as he uses his other hand to plunge a knife into Cas's chest.  
Cas looks down in surprise. He'd never seen a demon move so fast yet so elegantly. It was like brutal grace.  
The demon can see that the knife in Cas's chest isn't killing him and is hardly having an effect on him at all. As Cas starts to move to knock the demon's hand away from his arm, the demon leaves the knife in Cas's chest and pulls out another blade, which is long enough to be a short sword. He stabs it right through Cas's stomach and keeps pushing, backing him up until Cas hears the tip of the blade, which protrudes through his back, hit the wall.  
"What are you?" the demon snarls.  
Cas could kill him right here just by touching him—if he's fast enough—but something about this demon strikes him and he remains still.  
"You're not really a demon," he says, pressing his head back against the wall since the man in leather is only a few inches away.  
"What?"  
"You are," Cas corrects himself, "but you haven't died like the others." He glances down at the demon's chest and then back to his eyes. "This isn't a vessel, it's you."  
The man's eyes widen just slightly, then narrow. He glares and bares his teeth, twisting the blade in Cas's stomach. It only causes Cas a twinge of pain, but he winces. "How do you know that?" the demon demands.  
"I can just tell."  
The demon casts a glance to either side of him. Everyone's run from the bar except the bartender, who is talking frantically into a phone. "No one knows that," the demon growls, "except Crowley. How do you know?"  
"I'm an angel," Cas says quickly but steadily.  
The demon's glare turns into more of a shocked frown and he leans back slightly.  
"I'm not going to kill you," Cas says. "Not now. And obviously you're unable to kill me, so you should allow me to leave."  
"Nice try," the demon says. "Why were you gonna kill me?"  
Cas doesn't really understand why his logic didn't work. "I—"  
"Dean," the king of hell says as he strides up to them. He sounds annoyed, not surprised. "Didn't you already kill someone today?"  
"He tried to kill me," the man explains, his glare returning. "He says he's an angel."  
Crowley's expression turns to mild surprise. "Really? And what's an angel doing with the likes of us?"  
"You've overstepped your line as a demon, Crowley," Cas says. He doesn't feel as tempted to kill Dean anymore, but it would still be nice to end Crowley before he leaves here. "You have killed and manipulated humans and, allegedly, angels far beyond what your soul trade calls for."  
Crowley raises his eyebrows. "So you don't like me…because I'm too powerful? Are you afraid of me, Angel? Are you afraid of what I can do?"  
Cas grits his teeth, looking back and forth between the two. "From what I can tell, I'm more afraid of what you can make him do."  
The two demons exchange a glance which Cas can't quite read.  
Crowley snatches Cas's angel blade from where he still had it gripped in the hand that Dean had held down. "So this can kill a demon?"  
"Yes."  
"Can it kill an angel?"  
Cas isn't quick enough with a lie and instead remains silent.  
Without hesitation, Crowley slashes a cut into Cas's upper arm. Cas grunts in pain and the wound glows blue.  
"I'd say…" Crowley says, raising his eyebrows, "yes." He hands the blade to Dean. "Kill him."  
He takes it as Crowley leaves the bar. Dean turns to Cas. "You know, for an angel, I'd expect something a little more…" He looks Cas up and down and smirks with a small shrug. "Impressive."  
"You don't have to kill me," Cas says calmly.  
"Of course I don't," Dean replies. "But I can, and that's the fun of it."  
As soon as he draws the blade back for a kill, Cas lifts his foot and kicks the demon square in the chest, sending him stumbling backward with a grunt. He pulls the sword out of his stomach and the knife out of his chest. By the time Dean comes back with the angel blade, Cas parries his attack and sinks Dean's knife into the demon's arm. It seems to alarm him more than hurt him and it affords Cas just enough time to grab his blade back. He slashes Dean across the cheek as a distraction and returns to heaven a second later.  
"How did it go?" the smooth British voice of Balthazar greets him immediately.  
"Not the way I intended," Cas answers, looking at the blood soaking into his trench coat from where the king of hell had cut him.  
"Are they dead, though?" Balthazar asks as he watches Cas take his trench coat and suit coat off.  
"No," Cas says flatly. "Neither of them." He unbuttons his shirt and pulls it halfway off so he can get at the wound just below his shoulder.  
"You messed up royally," Balthazar says with some combination of surprise and amusement. He steps up to Cas and starts to heal his wound for him. "What happened?"  
Cas's vision starts to swim and he blinks several times in confusion. "It was something about Crowley's second-in-command, he…took me off guard…." He's seeing dark spots now and his hearing starts to fade out. "Balthazar…what's happening…?"  
And then everything goes black.


	2. Hiding Things, Stopping Things

Two days later, Dean parks his motorcycle at a new bar. This time, it's around five o'clock in the afternoon and it's still light outside. The weather in Kermit, Texas is sunny and unbearably hot, at least to Dean, who is again wearing black jeans and a leather jacket.  
He's alone today. Crowley is back in hell and, as usual, expects a report after Dean has killed Amelia.  
Dean has learned a little more about his target and he finds it odd that she would come to a place like this. It's not a low-class bar, by any means, but he often thinks of places like this as being for people with no ambition and this Amelia—this veterinarian—doesn't seem that type.  
He goes up to the counter and orders a double scotch. The man behind the bar, who's taller than Dean and has warm brown, shoulder-length hair, is quiet as he goes to pour the drink. Usually when people don't talk to him it's because they're intimidated by him, which gives Dean no end of pleasure.  
The bartender sets the drink in front of him and Dean gives him the kind of smile that makes most people turn away. It's a smile that says, I'd like to kill you, but I don't feel like it today, and it tends to give people the creeps. The bartender is no exception.  
Dean's smile becomes more amused. Crowley always finds it delightful to watch people squirm under some of Dean's expressions, and this particular one he dubbed the 'wolf smile.'  
The door to the bar opens and Dean casts a casual glance over. Dark, curly hair, minimal makeup, medium stature. It's her.  
"How long have you been here?"  
If Dean were slightly human, he might be startled. As it is, he just raises his eyebrows and turns to find Crowley sitting next to him.  
"Why are you here? You said you had things to deal with."  
"Well, things ended quickly. Have you spoken with the bartender?"  
"No, why?"  
Crowley nods. "Just curious." He looks past Dean to Amelia, who's sitting at the end of the bar, smiling as she talks quietly to the bartender. "Unless you want to make a scene like you did with that angel a few days back, I suggest you wait outside and catch her when she leaves."  
"What are you not telling me?"  
Crowley ignores him. "Just go…have a smoke. I appreciate it when you don't do that around me."  
Dean rolls his eyes and downs his scotch in one swallow before he stands up. "If you're not telling me something that's going to matter later, I'm gonna be pissed."  
"I know."  
It's no cooler outside after the five minutes he was in the bar. He shrugs off his leather jacket and tosses it across a chair outside the place. He's left with just a gray V-neck, which makes the shade just barely bearable.  
He lights a cigarette and fills his lungs with smoke as he props his foot up on the chair. If there's one thing he's noticed about Kermit, it's that it's hideous. Flat, dry terrain for as far as the eye can see.  
"Dean Winchester."  
Dean can't hide his shock as he turns to see a familiar man in a trench coat approaching him. He lowers his cigarette. "Winchester? I—I haven't been called that in years. Not since…since I was a kid," he says slowly with a small frown. He's momentarily forgotten to be threatening.  
"Not since you were human," the angel adds. "Oh, and I believe this is yours." He holds up a chain with a hooked blade pendant.  
Dean shakes his head and remembers to scowl. He puts his cigarette back between his lips and makes no effort to keep the smoke out of the angel's face as he leans forward and snatches the necklace back. "I take it that poison doesn't work on angels."  
"No, it did," the angel says, his arm falling back to his side. "Or nearly." He frowns and cocks his head slightly. "I've never been unconscious before, much less for an entire day. I had no idea what had happened until someone found that—" he nods to the necklace, "—in my leg. Impressive, I'll give you that. But no, it didn't kill me."  
"I got that part." Dean puts the cigarette between his index and middle fingers and pulls it away from his mouth. He puts his elbow on the knee of the leg he still has propped up, and he fixes the angel with a hard, calculating look. "Who are you?" His tone is low and threatening. "Why do you know my name?"  
"I am Castiel. As I said, I'm an angel. There are resources in heaven that allowed me to learn of your past. A small section of it, anyway."  
Dean narrows his eyes.  
"You were born in Lawrence, Kansas. You were orphaned at the age of four and entered foster care until you were eleven years old. The foster father you had from when you were nine to when you were eleven had a habit of drinking too much. One day he was intoxicated while you were in the car and he got in a fatal accident. Dean Winchester died in the passenger seat of that vehicle."  
Dean is tense but he keeps his expression still, a small smirk on his face. "Why do you think it was me?"  
"I knew of you the day you died—many angels noticed that an innocent young boy had died, yet his soul never made it to heaven. Then I saw on the necklace. You must have tried to scratch it out at some point, but I could still see the initials D.W. carved into the back. I remembered the story and had to find out more. It all fits."  
Dean takes a pull on his cigarette and exhales strongly through his nose. "Why the hell do you care? What business does an angel have knowing the history of a demon?"  
Castiel steps slightly closer and tips his head down to fix Dean with an intense, dark blue stare. "Because I believe I can help you."

Crowley wrinkles his nose at the drink set in front of him. It's aged whiskey, yes, but it's hardly his favorite. He takes a sip and his expression grows even sourer.  
"Do you, uh, want me to get something else for you?" the bartender asks.  
He fakes a smile, though it feels sarcastic. "No, this'll do."  
The man nods and steps back to the woman down the bar from him. Amelia. Crowley, king of hell and all, happens to be extremely perceptive to emotions and he can tell at a glance that the bartender is infatuated with her. He smiles too much, too awkwardly, and keeps running a hand through his hair every time he turns away.

**Sam Winchester**   
_Human. Bartender for four years after having left Stanford University with an unfinished degree. Courageous, attentive, loyal. Intelligent manner, loves going to parks with his dog._

Crowley watches Sam carefully. He knows who he is. He knows things Sam has no clue about.  
He glances over his shoulder, where he can see Dean out the front window. He's scowling—normal—and seems to be talking to someone—less normal—but Crowley can't see who it is.  
It doesn't really matter. As long as he doesn't talk too much to Sam, all is well in Crowley's book.  
He should've known this long before he selected Amelia Richardson as a target. He should've chosen a different day, or injured Sam so he had to go home and he and Dean would never be in the same place together. But Dean was already suspicious. As long as Crowley didn't do any more to arouse that feeling, they'd be fine.  
Amelia says some last words to the bartender and Crowley realizes he must have missed something important. She has tears in her eyes now and he looks disappointed and sad. He steps out from behind the bar and gives her a hug.  
Crowley shrugs and takes another sip of his awful whiskey.  
Amelia leaves the bar and the king of hell knows it will be only seconds before she's dead.

Dean snorts. He takes the cigarette away from lips and exhales smoke directly into Cas's face. "You can help me?"  
Cas keeps his expression unchanged, not reacting to the smoke since he knows it's what the demon wants.  
"I'm pretty sure I don't need helping. If I did, it wouldn't be from something like you," he sneers.  
"It's not too late, Dean. You don't have to be a demon forever."  
"You think I mind this?" Dean says, spreading his arms. He drops his cigarette and crushes it under his foot. "I'm one of the most powerful demons around. You think for a single second I would trade this life for a pathetic human's?"  
"I think you deserve better than to spend eternity killing people."  
Dean rolls his eyes. Someone exits the bar behind him. A woman with dark hair and tears in her eyes. She passes them without looking up at either of them and starts to head to a car in the gravel parking lot.  
Dean immediately moves to follow her and Cas sees him reach to his side, where something is tucked into his belt but partially hidden by his shirt. A knife.  
Cas steps forward and grabs Dean's arm before he can go any farther. "No."  
"Get the hell off me, this is what I'm here for."  
"You are not going to kill her."  
Dean shoves Cas off, but in a second the angel is front of him, and this time he holds an angel blade in front of him. "If you move, I will incapacitate you." He flicks the knife toward Dean's cheek. "You haven't fully healed from the last time you met with this blade."  
Dean—seemingly involuntarily—reaches up to touch the healing cut on his cheek. It's probably deep enough it will leave a scar. Then he smirks a bit. "If I were you, I wouldn't be so sure you could win a fight against me."  
"But it's not going to come to that, is it?" Cas asks, just realizing this. He narrows his eyes and tips his head to the left. "Because you don't really want to kill her."  
Dean's upper lip flickers into a snarl. "Murder is my high, Angel. I love sinking my knife into their flesh and watching the light leave their eyes."  
"I believe you," Cas says slowly. He lowers his blade as the car drives away. "But I don't believe that's the only way you feel."  
Dean's expression breaks into a full sneer. "You pretend to read me, but you're a joke." He shoves past Cas to go back to the front of the bar.  
"Then why do I anger you?" Cas asks, turning but not following him. "How many people have you killed, Dean Winchester? How many times have you wondered whether or not it was the right thing to do?"  
"Stop calling me that," he says, but Cas has lost him. His tone is flat and emotionless. "Dean Winchester is dead."  
"Maybe," Cas says, watching Dean snatch up his leather jacket. "But you have his conscience."  
For just a moment, Dean stops in the doorway to the bar. Then he shakes his head and continues as if he'd never heard him.

Weeks go by and everything seems to pass normally. Crowley is disappointed that Amelia made it out alive because it means a deal has been unfulfilled and he's just lost a soul. But though Dean stays near the bar for the next few days—and Crowley refuses to leave his side—Amelia never returns.  
After that, they move on to a new target and a new city. Crowley returns to hell, as he was supposed to before, and Dean decides not to ask any questions about why he'd been a little off. Crowley doesn't always tell him everything and it's never meant much yet.  
His next target is an older woman named Eliza Johnson. Dean wasn't paying attention to Crowley's explanation of why she needed to be killed; he didn't really care.  
He waits silently on the back porch of her mobile home in the dark until she opens the door. As soon as she steps outside, he thrusts a knife into her back. She gasps and her eyes go wide, but she doesn't make a sound. Dean can feel her blood rush over his fingers, but he doesn't find the same thrill in it that he usually does.  
He pulls the knife away and she collapses. Just then, he hears a knock on her front door. Frowning, he peers through the house and, through the front window, can see a woman in maybe her forties standing on the porch.  
"Ma?" the woman asks, trying to peer in the window.  
Dean ducks behind the wall. He looks down at the dead woman at his feet, a conflicted frown creasing his forehead.  
"Mother? Hello?" The woman sounds concerned now.  
Dean takes a breath and leaves the scene.  
He finds the first bathroom he comes across and enters it with a troubled frown. He feels sick to his stomach, which is something he hasn't felt in years. He turns on the old faucet and rinses the blood off his blade before setting it aside and washing his hands of the dead woman's blood.  
Why does he feel this way? This guilt, it's infuriating.  
Dean's black eyes settle on themselves in the mirror. Just for a moment, he remembers the color green. Hazel-green. It's a faint memory, but he knows that was the color his eyes used to be before he became a demon.  
He remembers it.  
He remembers what it's like to be human.  
And it terrifies him.  
In a flood of uncharacteristic rage, he lifts his fist and slams it into the mirror, shattering the glass and sending glittering triangles sliding across the floor.  
He shakes his head and leans over the still running faucet, collecting water in his cupped hands and splashing it over his face before turning it off.  
He knows what he has to do next.


	3. Decisions with Consequences

"So did you move here recently?"  
Crowley looks up from his drink. "No, why do you ask?"  
Sam shrugs and tosses a washcloth onto the counter to clean spilled drops from previous customers. "This is one of the only bars in the area and I know most of the people who come in here. I'd never seen you until about a month ago and now you're here once a week."  
"Hm." Crowley takes a sip through the straw in his drink. He never expected himself to come here again after he stayed to keep Dean and Sam apart. But he had a couple of reasons for returning: first, he wanted to find out why Amelia wasn't coming to the bar anymore, since it irked him—as best he can tell, she moved out of the town. Second, he needed to judge whether or not he was making the right call not telling Dean about Sam.  
He's known Dean Winchester had a brother from the day he found him. For years, it never mattered. But now, he's sensed a change in his companion and he wants to find out what's at the heart of it. Dean has no way to know Sam is his younger brother, but Crowley has no idea how much Sam knows.  
"It's almost closing time, sir," Sam says, breaking the demon from his thoughts. "You probably noticed, but I thought I should let you know."  
"Right," Crowley says, and he finishes his drink. He stands. "What's your name?" he asks, though of course, he already knows.  
"Sam," the bartender answers with a smile.  
The king of hell offers his hand. "Crowley."  
Sam gives a solid but gentle handshake. "Funny you should ask on your fifth trip here," he says in good nature.  
"Yes," Crowley says. "But I don't believe we'll see each other again, so I thought it appropriate."  
Sam frowns, but nods. "Leaving town finally?"  
"Something like that."  
When he's back in hell only a few minutes later, Crowley summons one of his hellhounds. He strokes her head, though doesn't look at her as he speaks. "Find Sam Winchester." He offers his right hand to her. "I know you can smell him on me. Find him and be ready, but don't kill him. Not yet."

Dean drops a match into the bowl of ingredients, which flare up instantly. As he waves the smoke away, Castiel appears in front of him.  
"Dean," the angel says in surprise. "You're the last one I expected to find summoning me."  
Dean's glare doesn't waver. He strikes another match and tosses it in front of Castiel, where it catches on the ring of holy oil he'd made earlier.  
The angel seems to deflate slightly. "What is this about?"  
"What did you do to me, Angel?" Dean demands.  
"You can call me Cas."  
"What did you do?" he repeats more loudly.  
Cas shakes his head, looking confused. "I didn't do anything to you."  
"You must have done something," Dean says firmly but almost patiently. "I've felt different ever since you wouldn't leave me alone outside that bar. You did something, and I'm not lettin' you go until you've undone it."  
A realization seems to come upon the angel and he tips his head slightly to the side. "You feel guilty, don't you?"  
Dean tenses. "Not just that. I feel more…human. Why?"  
"I can't tell you everything," Cas says carefully, "because I don't know. I've never encountered a demon like you. But I believe you feel different because you didn't kill that woman."  
"Amelia?" Dean frowns suspiciously. "I miss a chance to kill one person and suddenly I'm having second thoughts about what I've been doing my whole life?"  
"But you've been doing it your whole life," Cas points out. "Isn't it regular by now? Routine?"  
"I kill someone about every week. Sure."  
"Exactly," Cas sighs. "I don't know what's causing you to be a demon, but it's connected to murder."  
Dean looks at the asphalt beneath his feet.  
"You know what's causing it, don't you?"  
Dean looks up to see Cas with his head cocked again. "Don't ask too many questions, Angel."  
"Dean, you called me here. You can let me help you, or you can remain this way forever."  
Dean shakes his head and growls, "I don't want to become more human. I want to stop whatever traces of it I have in me."  
"I will not help you do that. You've been a demon for, as far as I know, nearly thirty years—far longer than you were ever human. It makes sense if you're afraid. But—"  
"Don't insult me," Dean snarls.  
"Face it," Cas snaps. "You wouldn't have summoned me here if you didn't fear feeling like a human again. I think I can help you become human. But you have to offer me a little cooperation."  
Dean turns away dismissively, but can't help but look down at his hands, which he can see all too easily covered in blood. How many people has he killed since he was eleven years old? Hundreds? Thousands? How many times has he smiled as he fired a shot that blew out someone's brains or dug his knife into someone's neck?  
He closes his eyes and thinks of the woman he saw tonight. What must it have been like for her to find her mother, dead on the back porch?  
"Fine," he says tightly, turning back to Castiel. "I'll consider it. That doesn't mean I want to be human. But maybe…maybe it's better that way."

Sam steps out of his car and sticks the key back in the lock to lock it. He's had a lot on his mind lately and even though it's 2:30 am, his mind is wide awake with thoughts.  
Something about his interaction with the man named Crowley earlier strikes him as odd. He doesn't really dwell on it—he's had far stranger conversations with customers—but he feels like the man knew something he didn't.  
And then, of course, there's Amelia. He never really knew her very well—they kissed twice, but does that really mean anything?—but he misses her all the same. She needed to move back with her husband, he gets that. But he wishes they could've had more of a chance together.  
He opens the front door of his apartment and immediately gets pounced by an Australian Shepherd.  
"Woah, Riot. Hey, buddy. Hold on, bud." He hangs his keys up and squats to greet his dog. "Hi! Have you been good while I was gone?" He shakes his head, smiling, and scratches behind Riot's ears. "Of course you have. Good boy." He straightens and sighs. It might take a little while before Riot no longer reminds him of Amelia.  
He heads to his room to take a shower before he goes to sleep. His routine is normal, but his emotions are a little skewed.  
Just as he's taken his shirt off and tossed it into a laundry hamper, he hears Riot bark.  
Frowning, Sam goes back to the living room. All the curtains are closed and he doesn't hear anything, but Riot never barks unless he's seen or heard something obvious.  
"What's up, buddy? I think you're crazy."  
But Riot won't look at him and he keeps growling, his ears as upright as they ever get and pushed toward the glass back door.  
"Riot, there's nothing out there." But Sam goes to the door to check. The motion-sensing light has been triggered, but it illuminates an empty yard in front of an empty street.  
Riot steps slowly up next to Sam, but he's still doing some combination of a growl and a whimper. His ears are flattened now and he stands close to the ground.  
The light flicks off.  
Sam shakes his head. "I don't know what's gotten you worked up. There's nothing out there."  
He grabs Riot's collar and pulls him away to the bedroom.  
The light turns on again.

"Crowley," Dean says by way of greeting. He's the only demon in hell who can stroll up to the king on his throne without paying any respects. The only one who can do it and not get pinned to the wall as a dartboard, that is.  
"How is it being back in hell?" Crowley asks.  
Dean glances around. It's been quite a few months since he was here last. Crowley's been keeping Dean out of hell to avoid conflicts with jealous demons for nearly a year now. Ever since Dean became Crowley's second some seventeen years ago and ousted his previous second, Alastair, various demons have gotten vision of grandeur and tried to kill him for the position. Of course, they'd always ended up torn apart on the floor, but though it only got serious every few years, it was an annoyance Crowley liked to avoid. There was no chance he'd accept another second-in-command anyway.  
"It's comfortable here," Dean says. He can hear screaming in the distance. "By which I mean it's extremely hot, smells like blood and sulfur, and is full of demons who are terrified of me but sneer behind my back." He smiles. "It's typical."  
"For a moment there I thought you were getting emotional," Crowley smirks.  
Dean snorts and steps up next to Crowley's throne so that he can pat the hellhound Juliet on her head. "I think you know me better than that." Juliet growls because she hates everyone but Crowley. She tolerates Dean, though, since she, like every creature in hell, knows to fear him. "Where's Ophelia?"  
"On a brief mission," Crowley says. "I have something for you to do as well."  
"Of course."  
"This is a little different than what you usually do."  
"Fine." Maybe that means he won't have to kill anything and won't have to start lying to Crowley yet.  
Crowley shifts in his throne so he can face Dean. "A little birdy told me that an angel has been icing my crossroads demons. I don't know why and I don't know how, but I don't particularly care. I want him dead." He pulls a folded piece of a map from inside his suit coat. "I've marked the places the angel's been seen recently on here, but it's the best I've got. You'll have to track him down from there."  
"Awesome," Dean says, taking the map. "But do we have anything that will actually kill an angel?"  
As if prepared for the question, Crowley lifts a vial of a dark purple, viscous liquid between his thumb and index finger. "This worked last time, yes? The trench coat angel got away, but you said you stabbed him with your pendant before then. Since we haven't seen him again, I'd like to assume he's dead, or at least learned not to mess with us. Put this on your knife and you should be fine."  
Dean turns away, pretending he heard something in the hall outside. He discreetly tucks his necklace into his shirt, where it feels cold against his chest. It had been partially covered by his jacket, but the chain had been visible enough he figured this was better.  
"If you need backup, call Julius, he's available."  
Dean turns back with an amused scoff, one corner of his mouth turning up. Julius is one of the few hellhounds who doesn't hate Dean. Most of them were vicious when Dean first arrived in hell as an eleven-year-old boy, probably still reeking of human. Julius, however, had been born to Juliet when Dean was about fourteen. They'd grown up together, in a way, and Julius liked Dean even more than he liked Crowley.  
"I won't need backup," Dean says. "Give me forty-eight hours, I'll have the angel dead in less."  
Crowley smiles almost…proudly. "I know you will."  
"Dammit," Dean mutters to himself once he's back topside, standing beside his motorcycle. Why did he ever make an agreement with Castiel that he was going to stop killing? It's a ridiculous notion. He meant what he said to Cas that day in Texas; killing is like a drug to him. He needs it. He craves it. The idea that he could purposefully choose not to kill something is absurd.  
He swings a leg over his bike and kicks the stand back up, but he doesn't start it yet. He could summon Cas and construct a way to fake an angel's death or a way to lie to Crowley. He should summon Cas.  
Or he could just go kill an angel. Do what Crowley wants, what he wants, what he's always done.  
He puts on his helmet and revs the motorcycle. When he peels out of the parking lot, he's headed for the first location on the map.


	4. "But you have his conscience..."

It takes him about thirty-seven hours to track down the angel with nearly no leads except the marks on the map. He checks into a motel room for one night once he knows what town the angel will hit next, and within two hours, the wall is covered in pictures and papers and maps as Dean tries to figure out where a crossroads demon will be and when. From what he can tell, where there's a demon, there will be the angel.  
And despite everything, he almost misses it.  
The crossroads is near the edge of town and he only sees it at a distance first.  
The gravel roads that lead out past the empty fields surrounding the town are rough and dark, as it's about twilight, but Dean's Scrambler can navigate it just fine. It's one of his favorite things about the bike; it can go almost anywhere.  
He stops at the crossroads he expects everything to happen—it's a guess, but an educated one—and looks down the road running north to south. He sees a light flick on several hundred feet away.  
Frowning, he starts his bike again, but keeps the headlight off, rolling toward the light as quietly as the motor will let him. Long before he reaches the source of the light—he can make out a silhouette now—he parks the motorcycle and steps off the gravel road, where the crunching rock might give him away.  
"Um…" He hears a woman's voice say from in front of him, though she's facing away from him. " _Daemon, esto…subjecto volunt—voluntati meae?_ "  
Dean winces involuntarily as she slaughters the Latin pronunciation. As he gets closer, he can see that there is another road running through the north/south one, though it's smaller and less noticeable than the one he'd been at. The woman standing there is more of a girl, actually, probably between eighteen and twenty. College kid, like he expected.  
She turns the flashlight off and sets it down. " _Daemon, esto subjecto voluntati meae._ "  
Dean can see a demon appear behind the girl. "Well, you're not the usual type, are you?" the demon asks in a smooth voice.  
The girl whips around. "Uh—I—I don't know. Are you…are you a demon?"  
The demon, whom Dean unsurprisingly doesn't recognize, doesn't speak, but the girl gasps. It must have been the eye trick.  
"I…I want you to make me rich," the girl says in a shaky voice. "I want enough money for college and a nice house and…and—I don't know, some drugs, whatever."  
The demon rolls her eyes. "I've been doing this for two hundred years and still the most common wish is for money. Fine, kiss me, the deal's sealed, you'll die in ten years."  
"Wait, what?"  
"Well, I'm not your fairy godmother," the demon says, bored. Dean decides he needs to figure out her name. "This comes at a price, you didn't know that? Ten years from today, a hellhound comes and kills you." She smiles. "But you can have a hell of a time before then."  
Just then, the demon gasps, stiffening, and an orange light seems to flicker inside her, illuminating her skeleton before she collapses.  
An angel stands behind her.  
Son of a bitch.  
So much for finding out her name.  
Dean pours the poison Crowley gave him over his knife blade and stands up. The girl gives a short scream and turns to run, but she stops short right before slamming into Dean. She freezes in fear.  
"Run," Dean says in a low, flat voice.  
She blinks once, her eyes wide in terror, then takes off running.  
"You must be the king of hell's second-in-command," the angel says in a British accent. "I've heard about you."  
"I'm sure that's primarily about my outstanding looks," Dean says with a slight, sarcastic smile.  
"Of course," the angel says, and they start circling each other without thinking. "Not at all about what a vicious killer you are, or how you do everything Crowley demands, or the fact that you nearly killed an angel of the garrison just a few weeks ago."  
Dean shrugs. "I take pride in those things, too. What can I say? I'm good at what I do."  
The angel raises his eyebrows. "And what you do is kill? Assassinate, maybe, if you want to use a flowery word? Tell me, what kind of life is that?"  
"Well technically," Dean smirks, spreading his arms, "I'm already dead. It may be no life, but it's one hell of a way to spend your death."  
The angel narrows his eyes slightly and shakes his head. "I'll never understand your kind." He sneers. "Fortunately I'll never have to."  
The angel's clever, but Dean saw it coming. He whirls around in time to block the angel's attack from behind. A few clashes of their blades and Dean sees his opening. He slashes a brutal cut into the angel's arm, which causes him to drop his blade and look down at the wound, some combination of a gasp and a cringe on his face. Dean grabs the wrist of the angel's wounded arm and twists it behind his back, kicking him behind the knee to make him fall. As he drops to his knees in the dirt, grunting in pain, Dean raises his knife above the angel's neck.  
Then he feels a sharp, intense pain in his side. Somehow, with his free hand, the angel had snatched up his blade again and sunk it into the side of Dean's stomach.  
Dean growls in pain and rage and wrestles the angel's other hand behind his back, leaving the knife in his own side as he slams his knee into the angel's back, knocking him face-down onto the ground.  
"I was going to kill you quickly," Dean snarls, "but for that I might flay you open first."  
He's about to slash into the angel's back when someone grabs him from behind, one arm around his chest and the other holding his knife hand in place.  
"Dean—"  
" _Let go of me._ "  
"Dean, stop it. Let it go."  
It's Cas.  
He pulls Dean off the angel and pushes him aside. Then he crouches and helps the angel sit up. "What were you thinking?"  
The angel shakes his head, holding his bloodied arm to his chest. "I was trying to save people." He coughs, then glowers and looks between Dean and Castiel. "Why do you know his name?"  
"It's a long story—"  
"He's a demon," the angel hisses, "the one who poisoned you, at that. Kill him."  
"No," Cas says firmly. "If I wanted him dead, he'd be dead already. Is that the only wound you got?"  
The angel nods.  
Cas turns to Dean. "Was your blade poisoned?"  
Dean straightens slightly and says nothing. His heart is still pounding and he's focused on the angel he almost got to kill, wishing he could sink his knife into his chest.  
"Dean. Was it?"  
He finally looks at Cas. "Yes," he says through clenched teeth.  
"Alright," Cas says, turning back to the other angel. "Balthazar, go back to heaven, get the same treatment I got."  
"I'm not going anywhere," Balthazar says slowly, "until you kill him."  
Dean snarls and shoves past Cas, pulling the knife out of his side.  
Cas catches him by the back of the jacket and he feels the cold blade of a knife against his throat. "Don't try it."  
"Are you gonna kill me, Cas?" Dean says through a smirk.  
"No. No one's killing anyone."  
Balthazar is shaking his head, looking at Castiel with disbelief. "You won't kill him and you didn't even heal me. What's gotten into you, Cas? I thought I knew you."  
He doesn't let Cas get a word in before he disappears.

Cas shoves Dean away. "What were you thinking?" he growls. "Everything we talked about meant nothing to you, didn't it?"  
"The whole thing is a joke," Dean says scornfully, covering his side with one hand. Cas doesn't fail to notice the blood seeping through his fingers, though it seems to have no effect on him so far. "I can't stop killing; I need it."  
"You promised you would—"  
Dean laughs, a kind of empty sound, like he's never actually laughed out of happiness before. "You think a _promise_ means jack squat to a demon? Your world works very differently than mine, pal."  
"I saw the guilt in your eyes the last time we met, Dean. It was human. Do you want to make that any worse?"  
"I don't want to be human, Cas," Dean says, and though Cas could be imagining it, he sounds almost pleading. "I don't want their obsessions, or their normality, or their social lives, or their… _pain._ "  
"But right now the only thing you crave is murder. Does that still seem okay to you?"  
"After what I've done, that's the only thing that's okay," Dean says, taking a step closer to Cas. "You have no idea the kind of regret I'm on the edge of right now, Angel."  
Cas sighs. He can't read Dean's expression, but he senses that he should give him a break. "I can heal that wound, you know."  
"I'm fine."  
"You are astoundingly stubborn. Give me two seconds and I'll be done. You've already lost a lot of blood."  
"They say it takes a long time to bleed out from the stomach," Dean says, though he moves his blood-covered hand away from the wound and pulls his jacket to the side.  
Cas steps over to him and puts a hand a few inches from the wound. He feels the warmth under his hand as he starts to heal it. "It does. I've seen it."  
Dean raises his eyebrows, but says nothing.  
"There." Cas backs away. A moment of silence passes when Dean doesn't thank him. "What now?"  
Dean narrows his eyes, then says, "I'm walking back to my bike. Then I'm gone."  
Cas nods and starts to follow him.  
"Are you still convinced you can help me?" Dean asks as soon as they start away from the crossroads.  
"Yes," Cas says immediately, frowning. "Why?"  
"Wondering when you're gonna leave me alone."  
"You're a good liar, Dean, but I am starting to figure you out."  
Dean looks over at him for a few seconds. "No you're not."  
"Do you still want my help?"  
"I don't know," Dean sighs, and it's probably the most honest three words Cas has heard out of him yet.  
"You haven't killed me yet," Cas points out.  
This makes Dean snort in amusement, though Cas didn't really feel like it had been a joke. "You've got a one-up on most, then."  
Cas sighs and looks at Dean for a few seconds. "You don't want to be human because you don't want to feel human emotions again. Pain, regret, guilt."  
Dean shrugs, but nods.  
They're back to Dean's motorcycle and they stop to face each other. Cas notices Dean looks tense, but he keeps talking. He looks the demon straight in the eyes and asks, "Have you ever really been happy?"  
Dean looks taken aback. "Well, yeah, I mean…." He frowns and looks at the ground. "I don't know."  
"Have you ever felt awe?"  
His frown deepens. "Sure, when I was a—" He stops.  
"When you were a child? A human?"  
He gives a tiny nod.  
"What about love?"  
Dean looks up, his gaze suddenly hard. "No."  
"Those sort of things are what being human is about," Cas says quietly. He shakes his head and feels the corner of his mouth turn up in a sad sort of smile. "I can't feel them. I wouldn't know what it's like, but I've seen what it can do. If I could be human, just for a few days, I would. You actually get that opportunity."  
Dean looks mistrustfully at him and Cas notices his fists are clenched. "That's why you want to help me, huh? Because you're a lost cause?"  
Cas frowns and leans away slightly. "No. I want to help you because I don't think…I don't think anyone deserves to be forced into the life you have."  
"Don't make me out to be some tortured soul, Cas," Dean says with a hint of scorn. "I'm fine."  
"I know you think you are. But you haven't convinced me yet."  
Dean swings a leg over his motorcycle. "What am I gonna tell Crowley?" he asks flatly.  
"Nothing," Cas answers. "Unless you think you can keep lying to him."  
"I doubt it, unless I can give him a damn good reason I failed."  
"I stopped you?"  
Dean scoffs as he pulls on a pair of leather gloves. "Crowley's anything but an idiot; he won't buy that. I've never really been stopped by anything, not even an angel. If I hadn't known you, you and the other guy would be dead."  
"I know," Cas says tightly. "So, you can't tell Crowley anything. You're going to have to avoid him."  
Dean blinks a few times and scowls.  
"Is that…going to be difficult?"  
"No," he says shortly. "I can manage it."  
Cas can tell there's a lot going over in Dean's mind, but he can only vaguely guess what he might be thinking about. "Are you angry?" Cas asks. "At me? At any of this?"  
Dean looks down at his hands, as if just realizing that they'd been clenched around the handlebars of his motorcycle. "No. Well, yes. I'm always slightly angry. But I just feel…tense." He shakes his head. "Whatever. Stop asking me things like that."  
"Your nose is bleeding."  
"What?" Dean reaches up with a frown and catches the small stream of blood coming from his left nostril. "Dammit. What the hell?"  
"Did you get hit in the face?" Cas asks, confused.  
"No," Dean says sharply. He cups his hand under the blood flow, trying to catch it in his glove, though some still drips through his fingers and onto his motorcycle. "I need to go. I'll summon you later or some damn thing." He leans over the ground and empties his hand of the dark liquid. The blood already seems to be slowing and he wipes it away one more time before grabbing the handle of the bike and starting the engine.  
"You don't have to summon me," Cas says, stepping away from him. "You can just pray and I'll be there."  
Dean cocks an eyebrow. "Do I look like the type of guy who's going to pray for you?"  
Cas sighs. "You don't exactly have to pray, just kind of…project your thoughts, let me know you want to talk."  
"Sure." Dean revs the engine and swings the motorcycle in a tight arc to face the way he must have come. Then he turns his head slightly back to look toward Cas. "Anything else to say, Angel?"  
"Don't kill anything. And…I have a name."


	5. A Story In Ink

Dean spends about fifteen minutes pacing back and forth in his motel room, which he's had to book for another few nights. He can go through the motions of this whole 'not killing' thing, but he's going to have to find motivation for it somewhere.  
He can remember the old woman dead on the porch and the nasty gash on Balthazar's arm and the horrified look on the college girl's face when she turned and saw him—just saw him—standing there. Maybe that will be his motivation.  
He needs to do something permanent. Something that will really set him on this insane path to become human again, something he'll have a hard time turning back from.  
So he returns to hell.  
"Back in less than forty hours, as expected," Crowley says. "I take it the angel's dead?"  
"No," Dean says flatly, "and he's not going to be."  
"So what, the poison didn't work? What happened? You don't just _not kill_ someone, Dean. _Especially_ not you."  
"I know."  
"So why isn't the angel dead?" Crowley asks slowly, almost in the manner he would speak to a normal demon.  
"Because I'm done killing for you, Crowley," Dean says evenly. He leans against a pillar and pulls a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket.  
"Don't you dare light that in my throne room."  
Dean smirks and lights it.  
"What do you mean, you're done killing?"  
Dean speaks through his cigarette and only removes it at the end of his first sentence. "I've been doing the same damn thing my whole life. From the day you pulled me out of that car, all I've done is murder people for you. Sure, I've gotten a little taste of running hell, but honestly? Your job is boring, Crowley, and I don't want any part of this anymore."  
Crowley stands up. "But I pulled you out of that car, Dean," he says, raising his voice but not yet reaching a shout. "You wouldn't _be here_ if it weren't for me."  
"Oh, I know. And I would thank you. But lately I've been wondering if these last twenty-six years have been worth my time. I've seen things, yes. I've been powerful. I've been riding a high my whole life and you've never let me back down. I know what it means. I know what happens when I stop killing."  
"You can't stop killing," Crowley hisses. "I told you a thousand times when you were younger. You'll never be able to stop."  
"You never told me what would happen if I did. I think I know now." He holds his cigarette in one hand and pulls his sleeve up with the other. "I can get rid of this, can't I? It can't make me a demon forever as long as I stop killing."  
"No. You don't understand how that thing works. If you stop killing, you're going to die. You don't just get to magically go back to being human."  
He can't pretend he's not taken aback by the idea that this may kill him, but he swallows it quickly and retorts, "Then like I said; maybe this so-called life isn't worth living." He tosses his still-burning cigarette at Crowley's feet and starts to leave the room.  
"Don't do this, Dean. You have no idea what will happen."  
"Let me go, Crowley," Dean says without looking back. "It's about damn time you let me do something of my own accord."  
"I need you," Crowley calls after him. "I _created_ you."  
Dean stops and looks back over his shoulder. "I know. That's why you did this to me in the first place. Not because you cared. Because you wanted to shape me into something you could control. Well, good job. But it's over." He waits long enough to read Crowley's expression and he can see in the king's face that everything he'd just said was true. Then he leaves without looking back.

"Your wound must have already been treated?" Cas asks warily once he runs into Balthazar again in heaven.  
"It was faster for me. We already knew what to do." Balthazar isn't looking at him.  
"Good." Cas shifts his weight. "I should have helped you heal it, I just—I got distracted and—"  
"It's fine," Balthazar says. "It's over. I'm over it."  
Cas nods. There's a pause, and then he says quickly, "About what happened down there, I should explain—"  
"You don't need to," Balthazar says. "I think I get it."  
He hesitates. "Did you…tell anyone?"  
Balthazar looks resolutely at the floor.  
Cas immediately feels a knot of dread and anger in his gut. He steps forward. "You told them, didn't you? I could be exiled for this—what did you tell them?"  
Balthazar looks him in the eyes now. "I told them the truth, Castiel. You've been consorting with a demon."  
"Just because I didn't kill him doesn't mean I've been—"  
"I saw the way you two interacted. This wasn't the first time you've met—I'd even say you like him."  
"I—"  
"You're my best friend, Cas. We've always kept each other on track when it matters the most. Yes, we've tolerated a lot of exceptions. I tolerated the time you had sex with a reaper. You tolerated the time I had an affair with a human. Fine. But a demon?"  
Cas stiffens and lowers his head slightly, but still makes eye contact with Balthazar. "It's not like I'm dating him. You know nothing about him, anyway."  
"I know he's a monster! The king of hell may be in charge of it all, but that demon has a death count like no other. He's been destroying things for twenty-six years, Cas—practically nothing—and he's murdered thousands. Thousands of people for nothing."  
"I know that," Cas says, though he actually didn't and he hopes Balthazar is exaggerating. "But he needs help, Balthazar. He—"  
"No," he says, cutting Cas off. "You need help. But it isn't something I can provide." He turns away and takes a few steps toward the door. "They'll be looking for you if you stay here," he adds over his shoulder. "It's up to you whether or not you want to get caught."  
He leaves without another word.  
Cas stands in the middle of the room, still staring at the door, trying to understand what this all means.  
He can't stay in heaven. That's what it means. But he has no idea where to go or what to do if he doesn't stay here. He doesn't know how to live in the human world, but what other option does he have?  
He can hear noise outside and he disappears before he can think about it any more.

Two days and two nights have passed since Dean and Crowley had their argument. Dean's still in the same motel, though when he wakes up in the morning, he's not alone.  
In light of recent events, he hadn't been certain how to feel or if he was feeling anything. So last night he'd decided to go to a bar and see if he could pick up a woman to bring back with him.  
As usual, he'd succeeded.  
"You sleep a long time for someone who says he doesn't sleep much," she says as he first opens his eyes and rolls over in the bed. She's dressed in only a bra and underwear and she's sitting at his edge of the bed, clearly having already been up for several minutes.  
Dean shrugs. As a demon, he doesn't technically have to sleep, but sometimes once he does he can sleep for about twelve hours. "What can I say? Gotta catch up sometime."  
She smiles and rolls her eyes. Dean's trying to remember her name, but it's not coming to him. "Well, luckily for you, I love to sleep." She stands up and goes over to her pile of clothes at the other side of the bed. "But it's time to get up, big boy, because I'm leaving."  
"They always leave early in the morning," he mutters as he sits up.  
She stares at him for several seconds. "You do this a lot, don't you?"  
"Sure," he says, pulling on his underwear. "You're one of many. You mean nothing to me. Hell, I don't even remember your name. Did I ever ask you last night?"  
She looks taken aback, insulted and hurt at the same time. "You…you…." She shakes her head. "I get one-night stands, okay? I've had a bit of experience myself. But you have—you have no right to treat me like that, you bastard." She gathers her things in her arms and heads for the door. "For the record," she says, pulling on her knee-length jacket and zipping it so she doesn't have to get dressed all the way, "I thought last night was amazing. But next time I'll make sure the jackass I spend my time with isn't as cold and heartless as you." She slams the door behind her.  
He looks after her for a few seconds, then shrugs. Nothing she said really means anything to him.  
Dean digs out a pair of jeans and puts them on before seeking out the coffee machine and setting it up to start brewing. It's been twelve days since he's killed anyone; this will make his thirteenth. He knows it's the longest he's gone in years and he's starting to feel some physical effects of it. The nosebleed was the start, and since then he's felt nauseous on and off and has started coughing. Nonetheless, he's still somewhat convinced that he should keep from murdering anyone. He remembers what Cas said about being human and it means more to him than the angel probably ever expected.  
Happiness. Awe. Love.  
It sounds cheesy in his head and twice he's scoffed at himself and picked up a knife so he could go kill someone, but both times he stopped. Something, and he's not even entirely sure what, has kept him clean. Is it that conscience Castiel seemed so certain he has? What does a conscience feel like, exactly?  
Dean goes to pour his coffee and wonders what in the hell he's going to do all day. It's not like his life has entirely revolved around killing, but now that he's staying away from it and he's cut ties with Crowley, he has no idea how to spend his time.  
He turns away from the coffee pot and starts in surprise when he sees Castiel standing behind him. "Jesus Christ, give me a little warning, would you?"  
"Hello, Dean," Cas says with a small frown.  
"I didn't summon you. Or pray for you, for that matter," Dean says, then curses under his breath as he grabs a paper towel to wipe the coffee off the side of his mug. Things like that don't usually startle him, but admittedly, he hasn't exactly been feeling normal.  
"I know," Cas says. He keeps glancing down at Dean's chest. "I, um, I think I need your help."  
Dean blinks slowly. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?" he asks flatly.  
"You're not wearing a shirt."  
"I am aware of that."  
"I, uh. Nothing, then. I need your help," he says again.  
Dean cocks an eyebrow and goes to sit on the worn fabric couch. "So you need my help now, huh?"  
"I wouldn't ask for it," Cas says, moving to stand in front of him, "but this is because of you."  
His eyebrow lifts higher. "Go on."  
Cas sighs. "I can't go back to heaven. Balthazar told them that I've been…'consorting' with a demon—you in particular. That's…that's an offense, even for me, and I'll probably be permanently exiled if I go back."  
"How is this my problem?"  
This seems to anger the angel slightly. "Because I just gave up most of my life to help you, Dean. I don't know if that means anything to you, but you should know that I've never given up that much for someone, especially not a demon I barely know."  
Dean's eyebrows settle and he shrugs. "Okay, so what do you want from me?"  
"I don't know…I want to know how to live among humans. I wouldn't even know where to start—I already got in trouble with the law yesterday."  
"Seriously?"  
"I don't think they're looking for me," Cas says quickly. "It wasn't that bad. Anyway, I get the feeling you know how to blend in as a human. More than I do."  
"Start with money. I usually run credit card scams. You can do whatever, just don't get caught doing anything that'll make the news. It's about that easy."  
Cas nods, frowning. "I might, um, need you to show me how to do some of that."  
"Another tip," Dean adds with an extremely unamused expression. "Don't appear and disappear right behind people."

"Do you…mind if I sit down?" Cas asks.  
Dean shrugs. "It's not my place."  
Cas hesitantly takes that as a yes and sits at a chair that half-faces the couch.  
"I can show you how to hack a credit card account and make a payment off someone's card, but I don't have a computer right now, so you'll have to wait for me to steal one."  
"You steal everything, don't you?"  
"Pretty much." He sets his mug on the coffee table and props his bare feet up next to it. With that and the fact that he isn't wearing a shirt, Cas can only assume he caught Dean not long after he'd just woken up. Though the demon seems unaware of it, it shows a tiny bit of vulnerability.  
"Are you _particularly_ gay," Dean asks, "or have you never seen tattoos before?"  
Cas realizes he'd been staring at Dean's chest again and his eyes dart back up to Dean's face. "I—um—no. I've never seen them before."  
Dean spreads his arms slightly and looks down at himself. "I guess they might be distracting if you've never seen any before. I got most of them when I was in my twenties, but I've had them retraced."  
Cas cocks his head and takes a moment to really look at the images and patterns now that he feels like he has permission. "How are they done?"  
Dean shrugs. "Needle and ink. And a hell of a lot of patience."  
The most eye-catching is the wolf's head at the center of his chest; half of it is its snarling face and the other half is its skull. An image of a night sky filled with clouds surrounds the wolf and spreads across Dean's pectoral muscles, almost reaching his collarbone. It's all done in shades of white, gray, and black except the wolf's eye, which is a bright, icy blue.  
His arms are decorated with a combination of vines and barbed wire, which twist from his wrists to his shoulders; Cas has seen these before when Dean was wearing short sleeves in front of the Texas bar, but he'd barely noticed them or the fact that they were permanent ink embedded in his skin. A single strand of wire from each arm meet and cross at his collarbone. His right biceps bears a human skull while the underside of his left forearm has some kind quote on it, though Cas can't read it.  
The last tattoo Cas observes is the first he ever noticed; it's the black silhouette of a dead, gnarled tree that starts between Dean's neck and shoulder and reaches up to curl around the back of his left ear and disappear into his close-cropped hair.  
Dean swings his feet off the table and stands up, grabbing his mug and finishing whatever was left in it before he goes over to the sink. Cas wonders if he was making him uncomfortable by looking at him for so long. He doubts it, but maybe Dean does have insecurities, for as much as he acts otherwise.  
"You gonna say somethin', Angel?" Dean asks, not turning back to Cas. He seems tense all of a sudden, like he had that night by the motorcycle.  
"They're beautiful" is the first thing Cas thinks to say. "The tattoos, I mean." He's not really certain what else he could've been talking about, but his thoughts seem on delay. He's distracted looking at the ink on Dean's back. The words 'Highway to Hell' are spread across from one shoulder to the other in a kind of font that matches the barbed wire on his arms. Below that, a spinal cord runs along his own and wings lay to either side of it—bat-like, demonic wings that are mostly shades of gray except for hints of red along their membrane. They take up the majority of the skin on his back.  
The tattoos all give the same kind of impression that Cas had first gotten from the demon: cruel elegance. They're beautiful, like he said, but they seem like an overstatement, like—  
"I had a very distinct idea of how I wanted to be," Dean says, still not turning around, which Cas finds odd. "I got most of these to say who I was for me, because I felt like I wasn't meeting my own expectations. I don't regret getting them, but I sure as hell don't need them to show what kind of…person…I am."  
Cas notices that Dean's hands are gripping the counter on either side of the sink so tightly his knuckles have gone white. He convulses once as if heaving or giving a silent cough and he lowers his head over the sink.  
"Dean?" Cas asks slowly, standing up. "Are you alright?"  
"Yes," he answers quickly, tightly. "Talk to me. Pretend everything's normal."  
"I—I don't know what to say," Cas says, stepping closer to Dean. "Why won't you turn around?"  
Dean's only response is to cough.  
"What's happening to you? Dean, look at me."  
Intending to turn him around, he reaches out to put a hand on Dean's shoulder. Before he can get within two inches, Dean has grabbed his wrist and pulled him down until he doubled over, wincing as the demon yanks up on his arm but shoves down on his shoulder.  
"Dean," Cas says through a cringe, "what are you doing? Snap out of it before you—"  
Dean releases him a steps away before he can finish. Cas straightens and looks up at him, still defensive.  
Dean's face is covered in blood from his nose to his chin and as Cas watches, he starts to cough again. The first sends a spattering of blood onto the floor before he makes it back over to the sink. His cough soon turns to retching, his whole body convulsing as he loses blood down the drain.  
"Why is this hap—"  
" _Shut up, Castiel,_ " Dean roars, looking up with a snarl before he has to lean over again to vomit up blood. "I could rip your throat out," he growls more quietly, but his demeanor is less threatening; he sets his forehead down on the faucet and stares at the bottom of the sink.  
"Dean," Cas says quietly and carefully, "give me a few seconds and I might be able to heal you."  
"Stay away from me," he says, first as a threat, then again with what might be concern. "Stay away from me, Cas, or I might kill you."  
Cas shakes his head and steps toward him anyway. Dean turns to attack him again, but this time Cas sees it coming. He catches each of Dean's hands in his own, then pins both of them together in his left hand. The demon is incredibly strong as he tries to escape the grasp, but Cas is stronger. He reaches up to Dean's forehead with his right hand and—fortunately—touches him before he can deliver a kick. Dean goes still as Cas tries to figure out what's wrong with him. He can't exactly pinpoint what's causing it—not like he usually can—but he can find the bleeding in Dean's stomach and lungs and heal it temporarily.  
He removes his fingers from Dean's forehead.  
The demon's first response is to cough again. He and Cas are only standing about a foot apart and drops of blood splatter onto Cas's shirt and trench coat, but he doesn't flinch.  
"Better?" Cas asks.  
"You're still holding onto me."  
Cas lets go of him.  
"Yes. Now I'm better." Dean's voice sounds raw. He turns away and grabs a towel from the counter, wiping the blood off his face before straightening and looking down at Cas. "Cas. Personal space is a thing. Don't stand so close to me."  
Cas steps away with a frown. "What just happened? I was able to fix it for now, but I couldn't identify what was causing it."  
"It's because I haven't killed anything," Dean says. He's still on edge and he throws the towel back to the counter with unnecessary force.  
Cas shakes his head. "What do you mean?"  
Dean sighs in frustration and goes to sit on the coffee table. "You were right about everything. I'm not a normal demon. Something happened the day I died in that car. And killing has everything to do with it."  
Cas goes over and sits on the couch across from him. From the looks of him, he still doesn't trust Dean not to suddenly lash out at him, but for now he seems to be holding himself together.  
"What happened?" Cas asks cautiously.  
Dean doesn't look at him and doesn't answer.  
"If I'm going to help you, you're going to have to tell me. I need to know."  
Dean looks at him expressionlessly for a few seconds, then turns his right arm over and holds it out for Cas to see. "This. This happened."


	6. Ghost Behind My Eyes

November 1990  
_The scene is silent. One vehicle, a small blue sedan, smashed head-on into the side of a silver hatchback. The driver's side of the silver car is destroyed, its door bent into the driver inside. Its headlights are still running; it's only been fifteen minutes or so since the crash occurred._  
The blue car is totaled. Its hood is bent in a horrible arc and the two front seats are littered with smoking debris. The cars crashed in the middle of a crossroads far out of town, far from any human that could call in the police. Both vehicles are smoking, warped messes, gradually collecting snow as it falls like ash from the sky.  
A man approaches the site. He wears all black and has his hands in the pockets of his dress coat. He surveys the scene with utter apathy. He walks up to the passenger window of the hatchback and looks across inside. The woman in the driver's seat is bloodied and still, and surrounded in jagged pieces of glass and metal. She's been dead for several minutes now.  
The man shakes his head and, curious, goes to the other car. He looks through the warped gap that used to be the driver's side window and can see the man sitting behind the tattered airbags, pieces of the car's engine burning through his lap. His eyes are still half open, staring blankly at the floor of the car, seeing nothing. He's only been truly dead for a matter of seconds.  
But then there's a heartbeat.  
Crowley senses it, not hears it, but he realizes there's another person here, someone who isn't yet dead.  
Frowning, he walks around to the other side of the car and pulls open the door. Surely enough, there's another body inside, a young boy he missed at a glance. The boy is covered in glass from the windshield and bits of metal and plastic. He has a bloody gash on his head, which is lolled to the side against his shoulder.  
Crowley looks at him for a moment. The boy's soul is still holding on, just barely, for as long as his heart keeps beating. But he's fading fast and from the looks of his mangled body, he can't be saved.  
The demon undoes the boy's seat belt and pulls him out of the seat, lifting him into his arms. He carries him to the back of the car, then sits on the vehicle's trunk and just holds him.  
And then it occurs to him.  
He looks down at the dying boy and his messy hair and freckles and pale skin. This boy…he could be the opportunity the king of hell has been looking for all this time.  
In that moment, Crowley makes a decision and he knows he has to work fast.  
He sets the child on the snow-dusted road and pulls a knife from the inside of his dress coat. He returns to the vehicle where the dead man still sits and he slits his throat. Without a heartbeat, he has to rely on gravity to carry blood to the cup he holds under the cut and it takes several minutes he tells himself he doesn't have.  
When he thinks he's collected enough, he returns to the boy on the road and carefully pours the blood around him, making symbols he has to recall from memory and can only hope are correct. He kneels next to the dying child and draws the knife again. Then, without hesitation, he takes the boy's right arm and digs a deep cut into the soft skin, a symbol like the number seven with two fangs. Then he slices the blade into his own skin, across his palm, and puts his hand over the symbol he just made.  
He closes his eyes and starts to say the incantation he'd only memorized a few weeks back. It's long and tedious and requires careful pronunciation, but in just over a minute, he's done.  
Nothing happens.  
Crowley slowly lets go of the boy's arm. He wipes the mixed blood on his palm across his pants and sits down hard, suddenly drained. He senses the boy's soul leave him. But it doesn't go to heaven, where it had been reaching before.  
He can sense it sink into his domain. Hell.  
Crowley lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. It worked. All this wait and all this searching, and it worked.  
He knows it may take time before the boy awakens, so he stands slowly and goes to the sedan to dig around in the backseat. He finds a small black backpack and empties it. A number of books and some broken pencils fall out and Crowley wrinkles his nose. Schoolboy. But it's early morning now—too early for the boy to have been on his way to school—so he can only assume the man in the front seat had kept him somewhere overnight after picking him up from school.  
A few flips through the pages of the books and Crowley finds a name: Dean Winchester.  
That's all he needs. Later, he will send demons out to find out more about a family by the name of Winchester. He'll need to know everything.  
The king of hell returns to the unconscious boy and kneels beside him again. He still hasn't stirred, and Crowley begins to talk.  
"I've changed your entire existence," he says, looking down at the dark hair matted in blood on the boy's forehead. "Corrupted it, most would say. You could've just died and gone to heaven. One more life ended early." He brushes the hair off Dean's forehead, easing it away from the drying blood. "But I need someone like you. I've always been alone, you know, and I've been fine with that. It does get lonely, though, this whole king of hell thing. Everyone fears me, and that's exactly where I want them. But I need a single person—a single demon—who doesn't fear me. That's who you are, Dean. You'll be the one I can trust. You'll be the one whom I understand fully, because I will know everything you are. I'll have made everything you are." He shifts positions and looks around at the tiny snowflakes floating like dust from the sky. "This is a risk for me to do this. I could lose a lot of respect bringing someone as pure and human as you back with me to hell. But they'll learn, and you'll learn. You'll be a killer. Your existence will depend on murder, but by the time it matters, you won't care. You'll live for it." He sighs. "I would be sorry, but…I'm not. I'm giving you a second chance. Wake up, Dean Winchester. Open your eyes."  
As if he could hear him, Dean stirs weakly. The wound on his head heals over. His brow furrows in confusion and discomfort, as if he knew he was supposed to die and now he's not sure what's happening. His eyes open, and his irises are pure black.  
Crowley smiles. "Welcome back, Dean."

"The Mark of Cain? Crowley gave you the Mark of Cain?" Cas asks with a frown.  
Dean pulls himself out of the trance he'd fallen into as he described what had happened. "Yeah. From what I know, it's not something just anyone can do; you'd have to be either an extremely powerful demon—more powerful than Crowley—or a very powerful witch. Crowley may not have been enough of a demon to do it, but his mother was an excellent witch. He knew enough from her to pull it off."  
"Maybe it didn't work all the way," Cas says thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why you're still able to feel human—he didn't curse you to the spell's full extent."  
"From what I know," Dean says with a skeptical expression, "there is no halfway. The spell works or it doesn't."  
"But you still believe you can become human again?"  
"I don't know, Cas," Dean sighs. He stands up and goes to pull on a shirt. "Right now I'd like to think so, but…." He decides not to mention the fact that Crowley said he would die if he refrains from murder. "I don't even know if I'm going to keep the motivation to change my entire lifestyle."  
"I can help with that," Cas offers. "If you'll let me."  
"Maybe." Dean glances up at the clock on the wall. It's about 10:45 and checkout is at noon.  
"Did you know?" Cas asks quietly. "When you woke up, did you know about the crash and did you…feel different?"  
Dean scowls. He's never talked about this in his life and now the angel wants details. "No, I didn't really know what'd happened. I was vaguely aware of some pain, but I wasn't paying attention when we crashed and I went unconscious immediately. I was technically still too young to ride in the front seat of a car; it's amazing I didn't die right away. But when I woke up…again, no. Honestly, I didn't know I was a demon. I didn't think I should still be alive, but for a while—a few days, actually—I felt just as human as I'd ever been."  
"Was it frightening? Having that happen, being taken to hell?"  
Dean rolls his eyes. "This is exhausting to talk about, Cas. Leave me alone."  
"Sorry," the angel says immediately. He stands up and when Dean looks over to him, he looks sheepish. "I don't mean to be insensitive, I just—I don't know what it must have been like."  
"Fine. You don't need to." Dean runs a hand through his hair. "I'm feeling generous right now, so how about this; I'm gonna check into a different place in a town a few miles from here. You can follow along while I find a computer and hack an account. I'll get us each a room and we can spend the next few days teaching you how to be a human." He piles his handful of belongings into the bag he can strap to the back of his bike and grabs his key off the counter. "No promises on any of this, of course. In an hour I might decide I want to kill you again."


	7. Constellations

The king of hell is angry. Three demons felt the force of his frustration back in hell and now no longer exist. But now that he's back topside and sitting at a bar, his primary emotion—if one could say he has them—is confusion.  
First of all, he has no idea why he keeps coming back to this bar. Perhaps it's because he feels some familiarity with the bartender, who isn't even currently on shift.  
Secondly, he has no idea why he just lost his right-hand man and, he admits to himself, best friend. What would make Dean change his mind about everything so suddenly?  
Crowley has been both a father and friend to Dean throughout the years. He turned the human boy into a demon entirely for his own benefit; there's no doubt there. But he'd quickly grown rather fond of the child. He'd had to stand by the boy often to keep him from the abuse of other demons and from the hounds that so badly wanted to rip him apart. He'd failed on both accounts a couple of times, so terribly unaccustomed to having a responsibility like that, but it hadn't taken him long to learn to keep Dean by his side. Dean took strongly to Crowley after the first few years and liked to do everything Crowley did, even bossing other demons around.  
Crowley finishes his second drink and looks up as someone comes into the bar from the back door.  
Sam Winchester.  
"Hey Michelle, thanks for covering my first hour," he says to the other bartender behind the counter.  
"Sure thing," the girl says, giving him an unnecessarily large smile. "Is Riot okay?"  
"He'll be fine," Sam answers. "I'm not sure what he got into, but his shoulder was ripped up pretty badly. The…vet says it'll be a few weeks before he feels normal."  
 _Dammit, Ophelia, you were supposed to_ not _draw attention to yourself._  
"Aw, poor thing. Well, I hope he has a fast recovery. I'll see you later."  
"Yep."  
The girl leaves and Sam turns around to find Crowley at the counter. "Oh, hey." He scrunches up his expression, pointing at Crowley and biting his lip. "Crowley? I'm sorry, I'm not great with names."  
Crowley cracks a smile. " _Voilá._ That's me."  
"You're back in town, huh? It's been…what, two weeks?"  
"I've had a lot of indecision lately," he says with vague defensiveness.  
"No, it's all good. You got something on your mind?"  
Crowley frowns. "Maybe, why?"  
"Oh, a lot of people come in here because they need to talk. They usually prefer to talk to the women, but I've had a fair few conversations myself." He shrugs. "Then there are other people who just want to be left alone. I took you more for a talker, but I could be wrong."  
"I suppose you're right." Crowley sighs and it takes him a moment to start talking. "I've had this…this friend for the past twenty-something years. I'm not really a person who has friends, but this was the one exception, I suppose. We didn't always get along, but when it mattered the most, we always had each other's full trust. Probably a typical friendship, in a lot of ways, but I wouldn't really know." He looks up at Sam. "Do you want to hear any of this? It's a terribly dull story."  
Sam leans forward with his forearms on the counter and shrugs. "No, I could use some time to think about someone else's problems instead of my own. Do you want another drink, though?"  
"Please."  
"Whiskey?"  
"Good enough."  
As Sam nods and turns to get another drink, Crowley shakes his head. What is he doing here, talking to his best friend's brother?  
It seems strange to think of Dean as his best friend. There had always been a hierarchy about their relationship; Crowley found something for Dean to do, Dean did it. It was simple. But it's undeniable as well that the two had some great times together.  
"Here you go," Sam says, setting the drink in front of him and returning to his position leaning on the counter.  
"I swear nothing changed," Crowley continues, and now he chooses his words carefully and keeps looking at Sam to judge his thoughts. "I did the same things I always did, yet suddenly he turned on me and said he no longer wanted anything to do with me. I don't…blame him for it, not really, but it doesn't make sense."  
Sam nods slowly. "Well, something must have made him change his mind. An outside influence, I guess."  
Crowley looks him in the eye and says, "Yes, that's what I've had to assume."  
"Maybe it's been coming for a while. I'm just spitballing here, I don't know your situation, but…maybe something just tipped him over the edge finally. I mean, he seemed like a free spirit."  
Crowley frowns and narrows his eyes slightly. "You've never met him."  
Sam frowns also and tips his head to the side. "This isn't the guy you were with the first time you came in here?"  
"Well—it is. But you never really talked to him, did you?"  
"Not exactly. But I thought I got a pretty good impression of him."  
The king isn't convinced. He's kept the hellhound Ophelia from killing Sam for a couple weeks now—which made the hellhound restless, clearly—but he has to wonder if that was a wise move. What if _Sam_ was the cause of Dean's change of attitude? It doesn't seem logical, but what other explanation is there? Crowley knows well enough how the Mark of Cain works. It wouldn't let Dean give up killing of his own accord.  
"My best piece of advice would be not to sweat it too much," Sam says, seemingly unaware of Crowley being deep in thought. "Either he'll come around or…maybe he wasn't the friend you thought he was. Sometimes people seem irreplaceable, but there are always others to meet."  
Crowley takes a drink of his whiskey. He can't pretend the words don't mean anything to him, but now he's on edge and suspicious of Sam. Without the full story and an understanding of Crowley being the king of hell and all, the bartender can only be so helpful.  
"Good talk," Crowley says, setting his glass back down on the counter and standing. "I suggest you watch your back for the next few days, Sam Winchester."

Cas finds it odd how humans work on a schedule; when it's light, they work, go out, do whatever it is humans do, then when it gets dark or shortly after, they usually disappear off the roads and out of public buildings. He knows it's because they have to sleep, but having never slept or tried to before, he can't imagine it. They spend nearly half their lives asleep.  
It's a hard adjustment for Cas to stay grounded and in a hotel room. He's used to being busy, in heaven, and it isn't long before he's restless.  
He looks at the clock on the bedside table, which says it's 8:30 pm. The numbers don't mean much to him, but can tell it's going to be dark soon and he can't fathom staying cooped up in this room for any longer.  
Fortunately, Dean doesn't sleep either, so maybe he'll go to him and he can find something for the two of them to do for the next several hours.  
He hasn't seen much of Dean since they checked into this hotel two nights ago. He wouldn't put it past the demon to slip away to satisfy his need to kill, but Cas knows Dean only has so much tolerance for him, so he's kept his distance. He can only hope that he's kept clean.  
Cas leaves his room and heads down the hall to Dean's door. He raises his hand to knock, but hesitates. Maybe he should just go back to his room and leave the demon alone.  
The door opens anyway and Dean looks up in surprise, stopping short in the doorway.  
"Hello, Dean," Cas says hurriedly.  
"Hi," he says rather flatly. He's wearing his leather jacket and holds his motorcycle helmet under his arm.  
"Hi," Cas echoes, then frowns as he realizes he just greeted him twice. "Um. Are you going somewhere?"  
"Just for a ride, why?"  
"Nothing. Well, I just—got bored, I think. I'll leave you alone."  
Dean smiles slightly. "You ever been on a motorcycle?"  
Cas raises his eyebrows, then frowns. "No."  
"You wanna come with me? My bike does two-up rides just fine. You don't have any leather or a helmet, but whatever. Angels heal as soon as they get hurt, right?"  
Cas nods. He vividly remembers Dean running a blade through his stomach, which had obviously healed as soon as Cas had pulled it out. It hadn't exactly been painful, but it was intensely uncomfortable.  
"Come on," Dean decides for him, stepping past him out of the room and putting a hand on his shoulder. It seems a surprisingly warm gesture from the demon. As Dean heads down the hallway, Cas is left momentarily frozen, still smelling the hints of leather, cigarette smoke, and hotel soaps he'd gotten from Dean passing within a few inches of him.  
Then he shakes his head and follows him down to the motorcycle parked outside.  
"Have you ever seen two people ride a motorcycle?" Dean asks, pulling on his leather gloves.  
Cas shakes his head.  
"What have you seen? Don't answer that. Okay." He steps over the motorcycle and sits down. "Just sit behind me. You're best off if you put your arms around me, which is kind of gay, but two dudes riding a motorcycle is gay anyway, so—hope you don't mind."  
Cas positions himself behind Dean on the leather seat, too nervous at first to put his arms around the man in front of him.  
"You might want to lose the trench coat," Dean adds, looking over his shoulder as he starts the bike's motor. "Or button it for once."  
"I'd rather not lose it," Cas says with a frown. "I like it."  
"Okay, Cas," Dean says, and he sounds amused. "Button it, then." Cas does so as Dean continues. "You have two jobs riding pillion—as a passenger: one, when I lean to turn, don't resist it, just go with me; and two, don't fall off. Good?" He pulls his helmet on and revs the bike's engine, probably just for fun.  
"Okay," Cas answers stiffly, suddenly wondering why he'd agreed to this. Technically, he hadn't, but—  
The bike takes off and Cas instinctively grabs onto Dean.  
"Ow, Jesus." He can hear Dean's muffled voice through his helmet as they stop at a sign. "You don't have to grope me. Put your arms around my waist, not my chest."  
"Sorry."  
Cas shifts his arms down and holds on as Dean turns sharply out of the parking lot and starts speeding down the road. For the first few minutes, Cas doesn't really understand the appeal to riding a motorcycle, but by the time they get out of town and start to drive along a winding road with a view looking out over a deep canyon, he begins to enjoy himself. It's a distinct, unique experience, unlike anything he's done in his thousands of years of life.  
Dean slows down after about ten or fifteen minutes and pulls over to the side of the road overlooking the canyon. "How ya doin', Angel?"  
Cas lets go of Dean. This is the first time he's heard the demon use 'Angel' in an almost—in a non-negative way. "It's…exhilarating. I see why this is your chosen method of travel." Cas swings his leg over behind the motorcycle and hops off awkwardly. He goes to the metal barrier that separates the highway from the canyon.  
A few moments later, Dean steps up next to him, his helmet under his arm again. "You're a sightseer, huh?"  
"I'm not on the surface often. I haven't seen a canyon like this in decades."  
Dean shrugs. "I travel a lot. I've seen about every state in this country; not much impresses me."  
"It might once you're human," Cas suggests.  
"If." Dean turns back to his bike and sits down on it again. "Come on."  
Cas has no incentive to argue, so he obliges.  
Dean turns the motorcycle back onto the road and they follow the highway away from town for another half hour or so—until it's growing dark and there are no other vehicles in sight. Cas has grown comfortable sitting behind Dean with his hands clasped in front of the demon's stomach. If he thinks about it, he can feel his every inhale and exhale.  
"You good to go back?" Dean asks as he slows and sweeps the bike in a 180.  
Cas's legs tighten around either side of the bike. He can tell Dean has had some experience riding this thing and he trusts him not to crash, but the tight turns still make him mildly nervous.  
"Yes," Cas answers. "But I'm curious, Dean; how do you feel?"  
"What? I'm fine."  
"Are you? I haven't seen much of you for the past few days and I wanted to…ensure you haven't been coughing up blood again."  
"No. I'm good. Well I'm not good, I'm a freakin' demon, but I'm fine. And I haven't killed anyone, in case you were wondering."  
"I believe you."  
Without waiting to see if Cas has any more to say, Dean starts off again.  
The air is cooling down, but it isn't cold; Cas actually finds it surprisingly pleasant. Cas can see a few stars beginning to show in the deep blue sky as the two head back down toward the town. Before they reach buildings again, Cas tells Dean to pull off onto a dirt road he catches sight of.  
The demon does so—he's surprisingly agreeable this evening—but when he stops the motorcycle, he asks, "Why? It's dark, don't tell me you're sightseeing again."  
"No," Cas says, smiling slightly. "Although I suppose in a sense. Look up."  
Dean pulls his helmet off and looks up. Then he looks back to Cas. "What am I looking at?"  
"The stars. They're only starting to be visible, but this is a good vantage point."  
Dean looks up again, this time with a slightly puzzled expression, as he turns the motorcycle off.  
"I've tried to teach myself the constellations," Cas says, staring at the sky, "but there are still so many I don't know."  
"The what?"  
"Constellations," Cas says again. He's admiring a pair of particularly bright stars almost directly above them.  
"No, I heard you," Dean says, "but what are they?"  
This pulls Cas's gaze away from the sky immediately. "You don't know what constellations are?"  
Dean looks annoyed. "Well, the word is familiar, but no."  
Cas frowns and looks back up at the sky. As he speaks, though, his expression changes to something more content. "Humans from ancient human cultures used to look at the stars and find patterns in them. Shapes. Usually animals or figures from their mythology. And of course, they're different from one season to the next, so I can never remember which ones to look for." He dismounts the bike and leans against it.  
"I don't get it," Dean says, kicking something so the motorcycle stands up on its own and swinging his leg around so he sits sideways on it, facing the same direction as Cas. "There are a zillion stars, how do you make out a shape?"  
"Ancient astronomers were imaginative." Cas spots a constellation he recognizes and points to it. "I believe that's one. It's called Aquila; it looks like a crooked cross."  
"The hell?"  
Cas smiles slightly at the demon's utter confusion and steps to the other side of the motorcycle, behind him. He points out the constellation again from over Dean's shoulder. "There are three stars, two brighter than the others, all close together right there."  
"'Kay," Dean says with a frown.  
Cas returns to the other side of the bike. "There's a star on each side of those, almost in line with them. And one below them to form the cross."  
"Yeah, I see it."  
"There you go. There's a bit more to the full constellation, but that's all I know."  
"So what is it? It looks random to me."  
Cas cocks his head. "I believe it's an eagle from Greek and Roman mythology, but I couldn't tell you more than that."  
He glances over to see the puzzled glower on Dean's face. "But it looks nothing like an eagle."  
"They're more of representations than actual pictures…" Seeing the expression on Dean's face, he says, "So maybe spotting constellations isn't going to be your future hobby, but you have to admit the sky is beautiful."  
Dean cracks a smile and Cas realizes he wasn't as irritable about the whole thing as Cas had judged him to be. "No, you're right. I'd never really bothered to look up."  
Cas leans more heavily against the motorcycle and accidentally shifts so that his arm is touching Dean's. He's about to pull away when he realizes Dean either didn't notice or doesn't care.  
"You know, I'm glad you're an angel, Cas."  
Cas frowns and tips his head to the side, looking up at Dean. "Why?"  
"Because otherwise, I would've killed you. And I think I like you."  
Cas looks at him for a moment with a hint of a smile. "That is the least romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."  
Dean laughs, and Cas is fairly certain it's the first time he's heard him laugh out of genuine, cheerful amusement. "Come on, Angel. I think I've threatened your life before, that's less romantic."  
"Maybe." Cas was going to say more, but now he finds his gaze locked with Dean's and the words die before he fully forms them. When he'd first seen the pure black of the demon's eyes, he'd found it unsettling, but now he realizes there's some unearthly beauty in them. He and Dean are only a couple inches apart now and Cas isn't sure who's closing the distance, him or Dean; he cautiously reaches up to the side of Dean's face and starts to close his eyes.  
"No," Dean says suddenly, pulling away.  
Cas opens his eyes immediately and jerks back. "What?"  
"We can't do this." Dean turns away in frustration.  
Cas frowns, surprising himself by feeling slightly hurt. "Why?"  
"Because. You're a freakin' angel and I'm a demon with anger management issues and—we already decided neither of us can feel emotions, not real ones, so why the hell are we doing this?"  
"I don't understand, why does there have to be a—"  
Dean is suddenly only a few inches from Cas, his hand gripping Cas's shoulder with his thumb in the hollow of the angel's throat. Despite the demon's unnervingly fast movement and aggressive posture, Cas doesn't flinch.  
"When I got close to you," Dean growls, his upper lip pulled into a snarl, "the first thing I thought about was how nice it would be to stick a knife in your back. I could kill you, Cas; I would kill you, and the idea that we could ever be close without me getting that urge is absurd."  
Cas shoves Dean off of him. "You're never going to get away from it if you don't try, Dean. Telling yourself you're always going to want to kill me is like already giving up. You have to resist it. That's what this is all about—not just hiding every time you feel it."  
Dean shakes his head and briefly breaks eye contact. "Do you have a death wish, Angel? Because you've been insistent on trying to help me, even though it's probably all for nothing and you're just putting yourself in danger. What are you trying to get out of this?"  
"I'm not trying to get anything," Cas retorts angrily. Then he comes to a realization and his tone softens slightly. "Not everything is a deal, Dean. Sometime good things just happen. I'm trying to make that possible."  
Dean fixes him with a hard gaze for several seconds. Cas holds it evenly, though with a hint of plea. Finally, Dean blinks slowly as he looks away, his expression admitting that Cas might be right and he believes him. Still, he says nothing, instead digging a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it.  
Cas sighs in resigned aggravation and turns away. It seems like every time he's almost gotten through to the demon, everything falls apart. He can only hope that with time Dean will stop shutting him out.  
He looks over at him for what feels like a long time. Dean seems to be persistently ignoring him, turned away from him as he smokes and watches the sky.  
Cas returns to the hotel room in an instant, leaving the demon with his thoughts and hopefully with the reconsideration of why Cas refused to ride back with him.


	8. Mr. Crowley

"You've been bored, haven't you, love?" Crowley muses as he strokes Juliet's head. "I have something for you to do. Find your sister. Find Ophelia. She's been waiting for a command from me, and I want you to give it to her: kill Sam Winchester. No, she'll know who he is. Find her, you'll find him."  
He can see the ravenous excitement in Juliet's blood red eyes and he gives her a small nod. She starts to bound off, but he calls out, "Juliet!" The hellhound turns, annoyed that he's slowing her.  
"I know you don't like to, but kill him quickly. As fast as you can."  
The hellhound dips her head slightly in acknowledgement, then darts away.  
"Hm," Crowley scoffs, staring after her. Hellhounds are brilliant creatures and he's terribly fond of working with them, but just this once, he wishes they weren't so brutal.  
It's been a hard decision for him. He's spent the last few days pondering his conversation with Sam and wondering if he should make a move or not. Eventually, he decided safe is better than sorry.  
"Sir. My king," a demon says as he enters the throne room.  
Crowley lifts an eyebrow.  
"There's been an intruder. He demands to see you."  
"Bring him in," Crowley says, bored. Intruders aren't common, exactly—not very many demons can sneak into Crowley's lair in hell—but they aren't a particularly large concern, either.  
Then two demons enter, holding a third between them. It takes Crowley just a moment to recognize the intruder, who holds his head high and has a smirk on his face.  
"Alastair." He expresses his surprise only with slightly raised eyebrows.  
"My king," Alastair says dramatically, bowing even though he's being held on either side. "Long time no see."  
Alastair has taken a new meatsuit, though one still typical to his choices; a middle-aged man with hard features and dark gray hair. He wears a business suit that Crowley notes must have been expensive, so whoever the human was, he was probably quite successful.  
"What are you doing here, Alastair? As I recall, last time I saw you, I told you if we met again I would kill you."  
"Well," Alastair says with a smug smile, "I'm not dead yet. Beside, you were just in a mood. I was trying to kill your favorite pet, who, I've noticed, isn't here."  
For a second, Crowley thinks he means Juliet, but then he realizes: he's talking about Dean. Of course. Alastair had loathed Dean from the minute he got there and had first tried to kill him when the boy was only thirteen. His hatred had only increased once Dean became Crowley's second. He'd tried to kill him after the first year, at which point, Crowley had banished him.  
"Dean's busy," Crowley says slowly.  
"No he's not. He's left you."  
Crowley's jaw clenches briefly. "You two," he says to the demons on either side of Alastair. "Leave us."  
The demons release him and leave, closing the doors to the throne room behind them.  
"How do you know Dean's gone?" he asks.  
Alastair smirks. "I have resources, Crowley. I'm not the outcast you assume I am. Your little pet has run away."  
"Fine, yes, we had a little…falling out. Why do you care?"  
"Well, I _am_ available. I've kept myself busy over the past sixteen years, but I would be willing to—you know—resume my old position."  
Crowley scoffs silently. "You want to feel powerful again."  
"Every demon wants to feel powerful, but I am powerful. There's a reason you chose me as your second all those years ago. I haven't changed."  
Crowley narrows his eyes. "No. There's also a reason I told you never to come back."  
"Yes, and that reason was Dean. Well, he's out of the picture. You need help, Crowley, I don't doubt it. You have this kingdom set up so that you need a second, a right-hand man." He spreads his arms and smiles. "I'm right here."  
"You were never my right-hand man, Alastair," Crowley sneers. "Don't pretend we were friends. Most of the time, you were gone, torturing souls. I don't need you. Dean will come back."  
Alastair raises his eyebrows. "Oh he will, will he? What makes you so sure? Do you know what he's been doing?"  
"I know well enough," he lies. He wishes he could send demons to find Dean, but he knows that'd be nearly impossible. Dean's better than that.  
"He's not coming back," Alastair says with such certainty that Crowley wonders what his 'resources' really are. How would he be able to find him and Crowley isn't? "He's too busy with his angel lover."  
Crowley stiffens. "Angel?"  
Alastair feigns surprise. "You don't know, do you? Yes, your precious pet is consorting with angels. That's probably why he left; he's being corrupted."  
But this isn't Crowley's concern. He stands and steps closer to Alastair. "Tell me," he says slowly, "you're certain it was an angel."  
"Yes. Do you think I'm an idiot?"  
Crowley walks past him and opens the doors to the throne room. "Take him to a cell," he says to the demons outside. "I'll deal with him later."  
"Yes, sir. Where are you—"  
But he's already gone.

Sam has exactly one day off every week. He's been told time and time again to make the most of it; go out to eat or drink, hang out with friends, go to this event or that. He rarely does anything of the sort. Instead, he's sitting on the lawn of the tiny backyard behind his apartment. He has no chair, so he sits on the grass with an iced latte sitting beside him. Riot is stretched out on his side next to him, a bandage laced around his shoulder. Sam has a hand on the dog's side and uses the other to hold the book he's about halfway through.  
Riot suddenly struggles to his feet, ears up and alert. He starts to growl and whimper.  
"Buddy…" Sam complains, lowering his book. Riot's been on edge for weeks now, especially since his shoulder got wounded, so this behavior isn't unusual.  
But finally, Sam hears something. It's a growl, but he can tell it isn't Riot's; it's far more powerful and much deeper.  
Slowly setting down the book, Sam looks around. The lawns of the apartments are empty as far as he can see and there's nothing across the road. He tries to follow where Riot's gaze—hearing, more like—is fixated on, but he can't find anything.  
Riot turns and bolts for the back door, whimpering and scratching at the screen. Sam stands up, now confused and slightly anxious, and follows him. He opens the door and Riot limps inside, his tail tucked between his legs. Sam goes inside and shuts the door, still hearing the growling from the lawn. He looks out, but sees nothing. Is this some kind of stupid prank? Who would prank him?  
Sam sees the screen door tear open a split second before something huge and heavy slams into his chest, knocking him back onto the floor. He can feel the weight on his chest, focused at two places, like feet, and he can hear snarling, but he can't see anything. His mind reeling, trying to figure out what's going on, he starts to reach up to shove away whatever's on top of him, but instead he gets a stinging pain in his right hand. Before he can even fully draw it back to himself, he feels something rake down his side, letting out a rush of blood. He cries out and manages to turn to the side, knocking the invisible force off him as he curls into fetal position, covering his head.  
"Juliet! Juliet, back off. No, Ophelia, stay."  
The snarling stops and he hears footsteps backing away. After a couple seconds, Sam uncurls and rolls onto his back, clutching his side. Standing above him with a contemplative but unreadable expression is Crowley.  
Crowley from the bar.  
Crowley, whom he figured he'd never see again.  
Crowley, who he thinks just saved his life.  
"Y—you," he says, for lack of a better thought.  
"Yes, me," Crowley says, as smooth and calm and British as ever.  
"What the hell just happened? W—why are you here?"  
"I'm here because I made a mistake." He extends his hand to help Sam up.  
Sam glances down at his hands, both of which are bloody, then chooses his left because it isn't injured. He winces as he stands, sucking air through his teeth.  
Crowley raises his eyebrows at the blood now covering his hand. "I suppose I should get you something for that."  
"No no no no no," Sam says, probably too many times. He's starting to feel lightheaded. "You're gonna…you're gonna tell me what the hell's going on."  
Crowley narrows his eyes.  
"I just—I just got attacked by something _invisible_ and I'm bleeding and I don't even know you and I…." He stumbles, even though he's just been standing still. Crowley—seemingly involuntarily—puts a hand on his arm to steady him, then removes it immediately. "And I think I'm going into shock."  
Crowley sighs and pulls a kitchen chair out behind Sam, who instantly collapses into it. He can't tell if he's feeling more effects from the wound, or from the experience.  
"I forget how humans work," Crowley says more to himself than anything. "You're supposed to go to a hospital, yes?"  
" _I need answers,_ " he slurs, though his head is starting to feel cloudy and he can't think straight.  
"You wouldn't believe anything I tell you. Lean your weight into the back of the chair."  
He frowns, but his vision is swimming and he can't find Crowley's face again. "Why?"  
"Because you're going to go unconscious and I'm not catching you if you fall out of…."  
And everything is gone.


End file.
